Background:
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918; its
name was changed to Yugoslavia in 1929. Occupation by Nazi Germany
in 1941 was resisted by various paramilitary bands that fought
themselves as well as the invaders. The group headed by Marshal TITO
took full control upon German expulsion in 1945. Although Communist,
his new government successfully steered its own path between the
Warsaw Pact nations and the West for the next four and a half
decades. In the early 1990s, post-TITO Yugoslavia began to unravel
along ethnic lines: Slovenia, Croatia, and The Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia all declared their independence in 1991;
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia
and Montenegro declared a new "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (FRY)
in 1992 and, under President Slobodan MILOSEVIC, Serbia led various
military intervention efforts to unite Serbs in neighboring
republics into a "Greater Serbia." All of these efforts were
ultimately unsuccessful. In 1999, massive expulsions by FRY forces
and Serb paramilitaries of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo
provoked an international response, including the NATO bombing of
Serbia and the stationing of NATO, Russian, and other peacekeepers
in Kosovo. Federal elections in the fall of 2000, brought about the
ouster of MILOSEVIC and installed Vojislav KOSTUNICA as president.
The arrest of MILOSEVIC in 2001 allowed for his subsequent transfer
to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in
The Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity. In 2001, the
country's suspension was lifted, and it was once more accepted into
UN organizations under the name of Yugoslavia. Kosovo has been
governed by the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
since June 1999, under the authority of UN Security Council
Resolution 1244. In 2002, the Serbian and Montenegrin components of
Yugoslavia began negotiations to forge a looser relationship. These
talks became a reality in February 2003 when lawmakers restructured
the country into a loose federation of two republics called Serbia
and Montenegro. An agreement was also reached to hold a referendum
in each republic in three years on full independence.